The List
by starfishstar
Summary: Sirius' guest list for his seventeenth birthday takes on epic proportions. Peter teases, Remus acquiesces – but James understands.


**Author's note:** When is Sirius' birthday? The Harry Potter Wiki puts it in autumn 1959 (rather than early 1960 like James and Remus), but the only grounds for that appear to be a JKR quote about Sirius being "around twenty-two" when he was sent to Azkaban…and we all know JKR Maths-Land is a flexible sort of place.

So I've felt free to ignore that and to assume instead that Sirius' birthday is in the summer…or during the Easter holiday…or really any time that would be convenient for planning a party!

Acknowledgements: Always JKR.

. . . . .

**The List**

Remus looked up from the list held in his hand with that expression that said disapproval and amusement were warring within him, and he wasn't sure which one to let out. In the end, the only comment he made was a faint, "Seriously, Sirius?"

James opened his mouth to make the usual bad pun, and Peter elbowed him.

"Yes, seriously," Sirius said, fairly glowing with confidence as he snatched the guest list back from Remus. "I'm an important individual, Moony. Any one of these people would be devastated to be left out."

"Give it here," James demanded, and Sirius obligingly leaned over and handed the scroll of parchment down to where James was sprawled under their favourite tree in the Potters' back garden.

James unfurled the scroll and his eyes went comically wide. "You've added another hundred people to this since I last saw it, haven't you!"

"Only a few dozen," Sirius replied, waving a hand vaguely, then flopped down to join James on the grass.

Peter peered over James' shoulder and guffawed. "A 'few dozen,' right. Knew you should've stuck with Arithmancy beyond O.W.L., Padfoot."

Remus frowned at all of them equally. "And your parents are going to be okay with this, Prongs?"

James laughed. "My parents seem to want to believe that poor Sirius here is just pining away with sadness for his family, and that we should all do whatever it takes to cheer him up. I don't disabuse them of that notion, 'cause it means more ice-creams for us, and tickets to see the Arrows play the Wasps, oh, Merlin, _that_ was a great match…"

In one deft movement, Remus swooped in and snatched the list back out of James' hand, because Remus Lupin could be quite the sneaky bastard when he wanted to be.

"Hey!" Sirius protested, but Remus ignored him and scanned the list at length.

"Do you even know all these people?" Remus asked finally.

"'Course I do."

"Jane Bletchley," Remus challenged, his eyes trained somewhere around the midpoint of the list.

"Uh… Hufflepuff! Fourth or fifth year, something like that. Talked to her once, I think."

"Martin Alderton."

Sirius sat up straighter, concentrating. "I'm getting images of…Charms class. I think we once had double Charms with whatsisface, Alderton. Ravenclaw or something."

"Mark Johnson."

"I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that he is almost definitely a Hogwarts student," Sirius declared.

Remus rolled his eyes. "Sabrina Brackman."

"Ooh, definitely _not_ a Hogwarts student. Newest girl in Andromeda's division at the Ministry. Cute."

Remus rolled the parchment up again and tossed it at Sirius, who caught it and shot Remus a wounded look.

"That's my one-of-a-kind list, Moony!"

Remus just smirked, amusement apparently having won out after all, and settled himself on the grass beneath the tree with the rest of them. "And you just figured everyone on that list couldn't live without coming to the great Sirius Black's seventeenth birthday party, did you?"

"Well, see," Sirius began, turning so he could address all of them at once, "I thought I'd just do something small here at James' place, right?"

"Right," Peter snorted.

"Just us, maybe have a few of the other blokes from Gryffindor over. But then I thought, it would be nice to invite Dromeda and Ted too, if they can see fit to get away from being busy, important grown-ups and whatever. And _then_ I thought, oh, how great is that, if the only person from the whole family that I invite to my coming-of-age party is the one they kicked out for marrying a Muggle-born?"

The other three were leaning in slightly, drawn into Sirius' story despite themselves.

"So then I got to thinking, who else can I invite to my party who would make my mother have a fit? Moony's perfect already, because no one likes werewolves."

"Oh, _thanks_," Remus said with dripping sarcasm.

"I mean no one except us, and we're the only ones who matter," Sirius replied impatiently. "And James and Peter'll do, because my family dislike you just on principle, for helping me out. And then I thought, why don't I just invite all the Muggle-born kids at Hogwarts I can think of? But once I did that, it didn't really seem fair, so I invited all the others too, as long as they're okay sorts. And then after that I thought, I could invite some of the people Andromeda and Ted know too… Even thought for a bit about inviting your parents' crowd, James…"

James' eyes went wide, with horror this time. "No, please."

"It's okay," Sirius grinned. "I realised they wouldn't able to keep pace with our drinking, so I crossed 'em back off the list."

James sank back down with relief.

An expression of belated realisation crossed Sirius' face. "Any of you have requests?" he asked. "I mean, if there's anyone you want me to invite that isn't on the list yet, I can probably squeeze a few more on."

James schooled his expression into deliberate neutrality and refused to ask, so Sirius said, "Yes, Evans is on it. I added her somewhere down there on the third foot of the scroll."

"How about Marlene, maybe?" Peter offered.

Sirius chuckled. "Yeah, she's on the list. Remus, what about you?"

Remus shook his head. "Don't add to that list on my account."

"All right," Sirius said. "Then all that's left is to plan this thing – the food, the drinks, the entertainment, all of that."

He picked up his wand and, with a few lazy flicks, sketched fiery outlines in the air in front of them that looked suspiciously like they were meant to represent fireworks.

"Hm, yeah, that'd be good," he muttered, before Vanishing the images again. He looked round at his friends. "You lot will help me, right?"

"You think we'd want to miss this, now that you're making it into the party of the decade?" Peter demanded.

"Besides," Remus said, "unaccountably, we're all rather fond of you and your megalomaniacally large head."

James just grinned.

When James' parents got home that evening, Sirius won them over to his plan immediately, managing to make it seem not strange in the least that he was asking to throw himself an enormous party in their garden.

Remus and Peter had gone home by then, and James and Sirius wandered off to their own pursuits, the novelty of having one another's constant company even here at James' house long since worn off.

When James dropped by Sirius' room to say goodnight, though, Sirius wasn't there.

James ambled through the quiet house and down the sweeping main stairway. Sirius wasn't in the kitchen, which had been James' first guess. Nor was he in the sitting room or the library or the winter garden. Not that it was winter, but you had to be thorough when you were dealing with the mind of Sirius Black.

Eventually, Sirius turned out to be sitting on the shale steps that led from the back patio down to the lawn, gazing out at the trees that bordered the far end of the garden. He had the carefully rolled scroll of parchment held loosely in one hand, resting on the step, and he didn't look up when James dropped down to sit next to him.

"Hey," James said.

Sirius nodded, and they sat in easy silence for a bit.

"You're not _actually_ pining away with sadness for your family, are you?" James asked after a while. "I thought I just made that up."

Sirius shook his head. "Nah. They're not worth it."

They sat in silence a while longer.

"Am I completely mental, Prongs?" Sirius asked finally.

James opened his mouth to make the usual quip – _Well, yeah, but what makes you ask now? _– but something in Sirius' tone stopped him. "Nah," he said instead. "Why?"

Sirius tapped the scroll in his hand gently against the step. "What am I thinking, asking all these people to come to a party that's just for the sake of celebrating _me_? Why would they want to do that?"

James thought for a bit, then said, "Sometimes a party's just a party, Padfoot. Yeah, the people who really matter come because they're there for you, but the rest of them are mostly just out for a good knees-up. And you can definitely put on a good knees-up."

Sirius chuckled softly. "So in other words, why am I worrying that it's presumptuous to invite everyone here to celebrate me, when actually none of them will be coming for my sake anyway?'

"Er –"

"That seems all right, actually," Sirius reflected. "Less pressure on me. And _still_ the party of the decade. It's good Pete coined that phrase, you know, we'll have to use it in the invites."

Sirius nodded, more to himself than anything, then reached over with his wand hand and tapped the scroll held in his other, muttering something. The scroll glowed blue, then faded again, and Sirius set it down on the stone step.

"Finished," he said, with some satisfaction. "I'll send out the invitations tomorrow."

James nodded, and they both gazed out at the trees. After a while, James asked again, "But do you miss them?"

"They're ignorant maniacs," Sirius said.

"But still."

Sirius was silent for a while. "Yeah."

James nodded, and didn't look at him. "I know. I would too."

Sirius didn't say anything, so James hazarded a glance his way.

Sirius was smiling faintly. "On second thought," he said, "let's make it the party of the century."

. . . . .

The End


End file.
